


why’d you have to go (and make things so complicated)

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bad Decisions, Cigarettes, Future Fic, His Dreams Being Ben Solo, Hook-Up, It's All Very Pathetic, M/M, Mockery as a Form of Foreplay and Pillow Talk, Multi, Mutual Pining, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Pining, Snark, Terex Is More Into It Than He Cares To Admit, Terex Tries To Talk Poe Into Chasing His Dreams, post-coital conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-22 12:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16598297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: Terex blew a smoke ring directly into Poe’s face like the utter jackass he was. “I might do that anyway. But that’s not going to divert my attention now. Not when I’ve got you right where I want you.” He gestured at Poe and then let his fingers trace the line of Poe’s sternum from collarbone to rib cage, the cigarra balanced precariously between his fingers. “Back to you and your pathetic little crush on Ben Solo.”





	why’d you have to go (and make things so complicated)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musamihi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/gifts).



> We all know where this title came from.

“I see the way you look at him,” Terex said, chewing as thoughtfully as he could on the contraband cigarra he’d managed to smuggle into the Resistance base right under Leia’s nose—and Poe’s nose, too. He seemed to think it was charming and dashing and roguish. Either that or he had a rather strange idea that maybe Poe had an oral fixation. With the way he flipped the thing between his fingers, let it hang from his lips, let his mouth curl into a suggestive ‘o’ shape, Poe was beginning to get some ideas, but not the ones Terex wanted him to get.

Probably he was hoping Poe would ask to be blown. Mostly Poe just wanted to stub the thing out in Terex’s eye. The smoke would linger for days, long after Terex had swanned off on another bullshit assignment from Leia that somehow bore fruit, the only thing of Terex’s that stuck around.

Poe hated it. He. Hated. It.

“What are you blathering on about?” Poe asked, reconsidering his desire to stab Terex in the eye with the fiery end of his shitty cigarra. Maybe he should tell Terex to blow him. At least that way his mouth would be occupied with something other than the nonsense words that were falling from his lips. “Or is there more to the tabac in that cigarra than you’ve mentioned?” It wouldn’t have been the first time Terex had done something that skirted the very edge of decency beneath Poe’s roof and it wouldn’t be the last. “Maybe a bit of hash oil? You sound a little bit high to me.”

Terex rolled his eyes and pushed himself up onto his elbow, very conveniently dislodging Poe from the comfort of using Terex as a sturdy, surprisingly muscular pillow. “You have very quaint ideas about me, my dear,” he replied, which wasn’t a no. “And about what legitimate drugs smell like. This cigarra comes all the way from—”

“I don’t care where it comes from,” Poe answered. “I just want you to finish it and then somehow invent a means to make my room stop smelling like it.”

“You could just tell me to stop.”

“What good would that do? You’d just bring ten more into my quarters and light them to spite me.” This was good. This was getting them off the topic of whatever it was Terex was originally wanting to talk about. Poe would gladly argue for the ten-thousandth time about this so long as he never, ever had to acknowledge Terex’s blunt, unfortunate observation. Terex saw nothing and invented everything.

That was, at least, what Poe told himself. It was how he managed to get himself to sleep at night. Otherwise he’d have to admit to Terex that he was right about something and that was never a good thing. Not only would he be obnoxious about it, but he’d lord it over Poe for the rest of time. No, thank you. Better instead to grind old gripes into the ground until they were nothing more than smudges on the duracrete.

“Now there’s an idea.” Terex blew a smoke ring directly into Poe’s face like the utter jackass he was. “I might do that anyway. But that’s not going to divert my attention now. Not when I’ve got you right where I want you.” He gestured at Poe and then let his fingers trace the line of Poe’s sternum from collarbone to rib cage, the cigarra balanced precariously between his fingers. “Back to you and your pathetic little crush on Ben Solo.”

Poe’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, his heart rate suddenly rocketing. Force damn it, but Terex didn’t have to say shit like that. Not when it wasn’t true, not in the slightest. Terex was just full of shit. “Blow me,” Poe said, shoving at Terex’s shoulder before taking the cigarra from him and sucking hot, acrid smoke into his lungs. It was less bitter than the realization that Terex knew, that he was doing this now. Finally.

It was bound to happen. Terex wasn’t stupid even if he was easy to catch and foil. Or maybe he just had a Poe-shaped space for failure in his brain. Poe didn’t care too much to speculate about that. It got too close to questions about just why either of them were here and doing what they were doing. Analyzing that was never a good idea, not with a war on and not with Terex specifically. It ended up with Poe feeling like a fool more times than not.

Why he let Terex into his bed at all was entirely beyond him even all these years later. The best he could tell it was some kind of sickness. Bad judgment, too. Maybe a couple of blows to the head were responsible. He liked blaming anything besides himself.

Terex’s mouth twisted and his eyes flashed and maybe, maybe it would have worked if Poe’d managed to sound anything other than utterly nauseated when he suggested it. ‘Blow me’ didn’t sound all that impressive or enticing when it came out all defensive like that. Force, what a damned mess. This was it. This was the last time Poe was ever going to fuck Terex. That was the only solution here and all he could feel was relief at having made that monumental decision, that utterly rational and not at all reactionary decision to being put in an emotional corner he didn’t want to be in. Yep. Good riddance. They could save themselves further trouble, wash their hands of this experience entirely. All he had to do was open his mouth and say they were done and he could be free of this bullshit.

If he’d known this was it, he might have mourned it a little more, might have tried a little harder to make it better.

Or he might’ve ruined it on purpose. Just for old time’s sake. Good for a laugh anyway. As it was, he’d come out of the experience thoroughly satisfied if not moved to tears by the utter perfection of it. So, you know, the usual. Nothing special, but nothing mediocre anyway.

Boring wasn’t the right word to describe it, but nothing particularly exciting either. Expected. Fun, but familiar.

He could give it up. Easily. It wouldn’t hurt him in the slightest.

“Next time,” Terex finally said, bless him for his optimism, as he patted the back of Poe’s hand, all sorts of condescending. Smug was a good look for him and Poe was never, ever going to admit to it. “Not like you’ll be getting it up again any time soon.”

Poe kind of loved him for that. It made being a dick in return so much easier. Grinning, he answered, “It’s cute you’re counting on a next time.” He trusted that the meaning was entirely clear. Shut the fuck up about Ben kriffing Solo or else.

Poe really was feeling sick at the thought of it. He wouldn’t even call what he felt—as though he regularly admitted to having feelings beyond, ‘Oh, hey, glad you’re not dead yet!’ and ‘Let’s catch those First Order fucks with their pants down’—a crush. It wasn’t anything so formed as that, so positive and heartwarming. No, what he felt for Ben Solo was something more akin to the need to repeatedly punch something while simultaneously wanting to push it against a wall and—

“You don’t even like Ben Solo,” Poe pointed out, throwing it into the bed between them like an old-fashioned life preserver. “You’re always calling him a freak behind his back.” And worse, Poe didn’t have to say. From everything Poe had seen of them, neither of them particularly enjoyed the other’s company and they stayed as far away from one another as possible. Why Terex wanted to even bring this up was beyond Poe’s understanding. Weren’t your on-again, off-again fuck-buddy, definitely not romantic, entanglements supposed to want you to stay as far away from the competition as possible? It wasn’t like it was going to go anywhere, not while Terex was in the picture. And from the looks of it, that wasn’t changing any time soon.

Terex was also the kind of guy who Poe wanted to punch and push against a wall.

Maybe Poe had a type.

And that type caused him no end of trouble. It was annoying as hell and Poe didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Maybe if he put an end to all of this he could avoid this kind of embarrassment for good. Better nobody in his bed than all of this.

“Have you heard what I call you behind your back?” Terex’s tone took on a pompous, overbearing quality. Poe could smell the underlying condescension. It smelled worse than the lingering cigarra smoke. “I wouldn’t exactly call it flattering.”

Poe swallowed back his knee jerk reaction to that, the offense he wanted to take at Terex’s words, at the fact that he’d made a thoroughly excellent point about the nature of their own relationship. That just made Poe’s stomach drop even more. “Kriff,” he said, hating the shake in his voice. He didn’t even really want to get Ben involved in this whatever it was. But now Terex was putting the idea in his head and he couldn’t say he didn’t like it. In fact, Terex’s earlier assessment of Poe’s prowess might have been premature. Sure, he wouldn’t be ready to go again right away, but he couldn’t say the thought wasn’t an intriguing one. Throwing his arm across his eyes, Poe drew in a deep breath. He’d never do anything without Terex’s participation, which was what had always kept him safe before. But now, now Terex was opening up a whole rocky coastline’s worth of vistas, places where you could easily fall to your death or at least find yourself cut to hell by the landscape. “Why are you bringing this up now?”

What he really wanted to know was why did Terex want to bring it up at all, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask that.

“Seeing you squirm is my second favorite pastime,” he replied, breezy. “But more importantly you’re embarrassing me and I’d like it to stop. Especially since there’s a perfectly reasonable solution to this problem.”

“It doesn’t have to be a problem.”

“That is exactly what I’m saying. You think you can solve it by ignoring it. I think we can solve it by making Ben Solo as miserable as we are.” A knife would have glinted with less sharpness than the smile currently gracing Terex’s mouth. It was a joke between them. The truth was, Poe never had as much fun as he did with Terex. They might’ve made a lot of messes with one another, but they were in it together. And Terex was useful to the Resistance, more useful in a lot of ways than Poe and the others were. That was the true embarrassment here, but Poe couldn’t bring himself to care so long as Terex kept getting results. “I know how deeply you enjoy ruining the fun for everyone else. I’m sure he’d appreciate it, too. The guy seems like he wants to do penance.”

Poe snorted. “You’re depraved. And you’re forgetting a very important variable in this stupid idea of yours.”

“Please enlighten me. I do so love it when you find holes in my plan.”

“Ben Solo doesn’t much like either of us.” In fact, if Poe had to wager, he’d have guessed that it was only a guilt complex the size of the Outer Rim that kept him from ripping Poe apart at least once a day. It was probably double that for Terex, who somehow just managed to get under Ben’s skin in a way that nobody else, not even Poe, could. Terex really had a gift for pissing people off. If Poe were a little less scrupulous, he’d publicly applaud the guy for his skill.

At Poe’s comment, Terex laughed, full on guffawed really. Right in Poe’s face. And the heartiness of it was only matched by the utterly delighted disdain it held. “You keep telling yourself that, Poe, and I’ll begin to think you’re a whole lot more naïve than you pretend to be. How have you ever dated a single person in your life if you’re this dense? It really is impressive to me.” Though the laughter had abated, there was still the hint of a chuckle in his tone. Whatever he saw on Poe’s face made the laughter start up again. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Poe frowned and tried to pretend like Terex’s words weren’t completely incomprehensible to him. There weren’t a whole lot of people in the galaxy who considered Poe naïve these days. Leia’d had a few words to say to him early on, but ever since then, he’d learned a thing or two about how the galaxy worked, how being a hero didn’t save the day. He’d never, though, considered himself naïve in matters of the heart.

He hated even thinking of them as that, but better than admitting even more—even only to himself.

Force. Did he even want to know? Not really. But he supposed he ought to. If only to keep himself from ending up with egg on his face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Not to toot my own horn—”

“—and yet, that’s exactly what you’re going to do—”

Terex offered a frown, but didn’t seem in the least bit cowed as he gathered the audacity to continue speaking. “—but I know for a fact he’s smitten with me and my many and varied charms. And he’s jealous. And lonely as all get out. Trust me when I say he’d love to get in on this.” His hand waved between them, brushed Poe’s chest. “I don’t see any reason not to indulge his superior tastes.”

That was just about the stupidest thing Poe had ever heard in his life. And he’d spent a lot of time with Terex already, so there was some stiff competition on that front. “That’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. There’s no way in hell that’s true.”

“Oh, trust me,” Terex said, gleeful and all the more terrifying for it. “It’s true. Pay more attention next time and you might learn something new.”

“Yeah, okay,” Poe answered, snide, dismissive, before pinning Terex to the bed and shutting him up before he could shove any more ideas into Poe’s brain that Poe absolutely didn’t want. And in a shocking turn of events, it might have been him doing the blowing in order to accomplish that. Anything to stop this line of thought at the source. Terex’s ideas were dangerous and wrong and did Poe mention dangerous? Because they were. And there wasn’t a way in hell Ben wanted a piece of Terex.

Later, Poe wouldn’t want to admit that that paying more attention exactly what he planned to do the next time they saw Ben. And even later than that, with the pair of them fighting over who was hogging more of Poe’s sheets while Poe contemplated stranding them on Hoth to fend for themselves, Poe definitely wouldn’t want to admit Terex had been right.

It didn’t matter anyway. Terex already knew. And Poe imagined it was only a matter of time before he got himself smothered in ‘I told you so’s.’

He figured now, knowing the likely outcome, that it was bound to be worth it.

If it wasn’t, well, he could always throw himself at Leia’s mercy and ask for a mission that took him far, far away from both of the knuckleheads he found himself so unfortunately attracted to.

Maybe she would do him that favor.

He hoped anyway.

He definitely hoped.

No doubt, at the very least, she would understand.


End file.
